


A Close Encounter Of The Archival Kind

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Memory Alteration, Plothole Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-10 16:07:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12915405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: As the Doctors are busy negotiating a human-Zygon peace treaty, Clara occupies herself by exploring the Black Archive. In a cluttered aisle of alien tech, she encounters a vaguely familiar Gallifreyan...





	A Close Encounter Of The Archival Kind

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a conversation I had with [Chrissi](http://archiveofourown.org/users/xXdreameaterXx/pseuds/xXdreameaterXx) while watching _The Day of the Doctor_ recently, and we hypothesised about how Missy may have escaped from Gallifrey and the Time War. I started writing this, then realised she wouldn't have been Missy at the time, and this is what resulted instead.

Clara was, by her own admission, bored. She was wandering idly through the aisles of the Black Archive, tired of the negotiations-cum-shouting currently being undertaken by the Doctors and Kates – the plurals of nouns that should never be plurals; the notion alone hurt her brain — and so here she was, meandering around the assorted alien tech, occasionally jabbing at items with a fingertip and praying that doing so wouldn’t result in the loss of any digits. Happily, thus far, she was still entirely intact.

She’d just poked what looked like an organic crystal ball, albeit one which was purple and slightly gelatinous and wobbled under her touch, when she encountered the stranger. He was stood in the middle of the aisle, turning his hands over and looking down at them as though he’d never seen his own body before. Despite his upright posture, his shoulders were round, as though weary of the world around him.

“Hello,” she said in the friendliest tone she could manage under the circumstances, and he spun around with a snarl, revealing a man with a scruffy goatee and garbed in a worn, black hoodie and matching trousers. A mass of dirty blond hair spilled down his forehead into his eyes, and he clenched his fists as he turned to face her in a way that would have been menacing, had she not been acutely aware of the fact that two Time Lords – a welcome downgrade from the earlier _three_ – were sat mere metres away, and neither would take kindly to anyone or anything interfering with her personal safety. 

“Who might you be?” the stranger snapped, and his voice was as cold and hard as the look he was giving her. Something about him seemed familiar, although she wasn’t sure why, and she racked her brains trying to place his face. “A dwarf?” 

“You know,” she leant idly against a shelf and feigned nonchalance as her brain ruminated on the situation. “That’s not very nice.” 

“I’m not ‘nice,’” he sneered, his mouth twisting into a cruel leer than sent a shiver down her spine. “I’m not even sane, half the time.” 

“Right. So how the hell did you get in here, given your apparently ideal security credentials?” 

“Where might ‘here’ be, girl?” 

“Ooh, casual misogyny. Not really making me want to tell you anything.” 

“I’ll _formally_ misogynise you if you don’t tell me.” 

“Yeah, that’s not a real word.” 

“You know, I shut the damn mouth of the last woman who crossed me, and I’ll shut you up, too. With pleasure.”

“Oh, I’m _scared_. Maybe doing that on top of a massive eff-off bomb in the presence of two Gallifreyans possibly isn’t the best idea. There was a third, but you just missed him.” 

“Two?” he narrowed his eyes, evidently thrown by this information, and it was enough to provide her with a clue as to his origins. “What do you mean, two?” 

“I mean, there’s two of them, sat over there,” she jerked her thumb over her shoulder, towards where the Doctors were negotiating. Well. Refereeing. “And also, because you apparently didn’t pick up on this the first time, can I just re-emphasise: this place self-destructs.” 

“Self-destruction is a nice little aphrodisiac as far as I’m concerned, sweetheart.” 

“Again with the casual misogyny,” Clara scowled. “Who _are_ you?” 

“You mean you don’t recognise me?” 

“Should I?” she deadpanned, for the seeing the effect her words would have on him. If anything, his anger tangibly grew. “Sorry, I didn’t know there was going to be another ego for me to deal with today.” 

“How many have you dealt with already?” the stranger asked, narrowing his eyes. 

“Three. Four if you include mine, which you should, because it’s huge.” 

“Oh, _joy,_ ” his voice dripped with sarcasm. “A woman with mouth _and_ an ego. Aren’t I having a brilliant day?”

“I’m guessing you escaped the Time War the same way we did,” Clara shifted topic coolly, and the stranger looked visibly discomfited by her grasp of matters. Good. “So, on the grounds of not being murdered by the Daleks: yes, you are.”

“How…” 

“You look very… battle-worn.” 

“You don’t know the half of it,” he admitted, sweeping his hair back off his face in an affected manner. “Recognise me yet?”

She thought for a moment, and then it hit her. “Harold Saxon. Britain’s worst Prime Minister after Thatcher.” 

“Oh, please. I bet you voted for me,” he hesitated for a moment, pleased with himself, before frowning. “But you shouldn’t remember that.” 

“Why?” Clara raised her chin defiantly. “It _was_ a big deal. You did ruin the country, after all.” 

“But time…” he scowled, then his expression cleared. “Oh, they only lost the _good_ bit.” 

“There was a good bit?” she grimaced. “God, forgive me for missing that part.” 

“I committed genocide and then my lovely wife Lucy committed murder. _My_ murder, actually, aboard the _Valiant._ It was really quite sensational. Some of my finest work.” 

“And yet here you are.” 

“Here I am. Ready to burn it all, again and again.” 

“Somehow, I don’t think the Doctor would like that.” 

“I don’t care about him.” 

“But he cares about you. And I know that deep down, you care about him as well.”

“I thought you didn’t know who I was. Beyond your lovely former Prime Minister.” 

“Call it…” Clara hesitated, trying to make sense of memories that were half-hers and half-not. The legacy of her echoes; one that tended to wake her screaming in the night but, sometimes, on days like today, provided nuggets of information she found invaluable. “Intuition.” 

“So, use my name. Call me by my name.” 

“No.” 

“Do it.” 

“No,” she smirked, enjoying her ability to rile him. “I won’t.” 

“Do it,” he growled, extending his hands towards her. “Or I will hurt you.” 

“No,” she said again, but she took a step back anyway as he loomed over her. “I won’t.” 

He lunged forwards, and she cried out as her vision went black.

 

* * *

 

“Clara?” the Doctor — _her_ Doctor — was bent over her, stroking her hair back from her face and taking her pulse and a million other things besides. It took her a moment to focus on him, but when she did, she blinked blearily, trying to recall what had occurred and why she was lying on the concrete floor of the Black Archive. “Hey. Hey, what is it?”

“What happened?” 

“You shouted, and we found you on the floor. You must’ve touched something and it backfired. Clara, I thought I’d taught you better than that, so make note: no touching weird alien artefacts, for all future references. Next time it could end much more seriously than this.”

“I thought I’d be OK,” she struggled into a sitting position, the memory of the words _my name_ echoing in the back of her mind, but when she tried to grasp at them they floated away like smoke. “Sorry.” 

“Don’t be,” the Doctor smiled. “Come and sit down while we finish up. Kate got distracted because the vault door was opened, but the porter apologised and said it was just, in his own words, a ‘senior moment.’ It must happen all the time, poor bloke; it’s nothing to do with age, just the effects of the memory filters. They do tend to scramble the brain after long-term exposure, but will Kate listen? No, she will not. Far too like her father in that respect.” 

 _Ready to burn it all…_  

“Doctor, I thought I saw…” The memories slipped away from her again, and she shook her head to clear her mind of the words. “Nothing. Sorry. You should carry on negotiating.” 

“I will, but first… can you fetch me a mug of tea?” the Doctor asked a nearby Osgood, although Clara had no clue which one it was. “And how’s my desk coming along?” 


End file.
